School districts have physical restraint and seclusion policies to protect students from harming themselves or others, but may have quite different standards for when restraint or seclusion is necessary. Last week, the Deparment of Education's Office for Civil Rights concluded that one district in Prince William County, VA, too often used restraint and seclusion as a strategy to control student behavior rather than employing alternative strategies. Responding to a complaint filed on behalf of students who were restrained or secluded while attending a Prince William County program for students with disabilities, OCR found that the program denied students with disabilities a free appropriate public education under the IDEA. The program's schools, called PACE (Positive Attitude and Commitment to Education) East and West, reportedly logged 115 instances of restraint and 147 instances of seclusion to control student behavior during 2011-12. As part of a resolution agreement, OCR recommended that PACE change its practices to offer students educational opportunities when they are restrained or secluded and consider different intervention approaches. OCR declined to find that PACE's restraint practices had a disparate impact on black and Hispanic students. Read OCR's letter, posted by the Legal Aid Justice Center, here.